1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computing devices, and more particularly, to capturing and deploying an operating system in a computing environment.
2. Related Art
As technology has become integrated with the workplace, corporations and other enterprises have developed a need to create computing environments that supply the members of the enterprise with computers and related equipment. Commonly, enterprises attempt to standardize the configurations and/or systems of the computers within the computing environment. The primary rationale for such standardization is that it simplifies maintenance, support and/or management of the computers and related equipment. Computers utilized in a typical computing environment may include client computers, such as thin clients, fat clients, ultra-thin clients, or hybrid clients, etc., terminal computers, or other networked or non-networked computers now or later developed. Related systems may include peripheral equipment such as servers, printers, etc.
Standardization of computer configurations within a computing environment has traditionally occurred in several different manners. In one conventional technique, an information technology (IT) professional manually configures each computer within the environment. This technique may be both time consuming and costly for the enterprise.
A more common method is for an IT professional to manually configure a master or source computer. Such a configuration, often referred to as a master disk image, is thereafter used to configure other computers in the computing environment. In addition to ensuring the master or source computer is properly configured, the IT professional must then utilize complicated software, along with additional equipment peripheral to the master computer, such as servers and databases, to deploy the master disk image to other computers within the computing environment. This method may also be both costly and time consuming for the enterprise to obtain the complicated software necessary for the deployment, as well as to obtain and/or develop an IT professional qualified to utilize such hardware and software.